You are an adventurer, who has travelled into the desert in search of excitement. There, you meet an old man who tells you about the treasure located in the nearby ruined and demon infested city of Gilgamesh. He also tells you an easy way to enter the city via the underground sewer system. Leaving will be trickier…
Melee is an icon driven top-down role playing game that was distributed as part of the C64 disc magazine Loadstar (Issue 61). Actions can be selected by moving an arrow (using the joystick) to the appropriate icon and pressing fire. There are four movement icons and three others: Magic, Scrutiny and Brawn.
Your character starts in the middle of the city armed only with a dagger. Items can be found in treasure chests whose colour indicates its contents. For instance, white chests contain one of four magic spells. Items can be picked up by pressing the Brawn icon twice (or just holding the fire button) and selecting a direction. Only one item of each type can be carried at a time. Types include keys, spells, weapons, three types of armor, and two kinds of treasure. Items can be dropped by pressing Brawn once and Scrutiny once, then he direction to drop the item. The same combination can be used to give objects.
Monsters appear at fixed locations, often guarding items. They may be attacked once by pressing Brawn a single time, and then the direction to attack. The likelihood of defense and damage during attack are influenced by your armor and weapons.
The only statistic that is tracked is hit-points, which will result in your death when they reach zero. You can be healed by giving money to a priest who lives in a ruined church. The priest also knows a way out of the city, but will only tell you if you bring him all of the treasures in the city. Once this is done, the game is won.
